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I call all the shots, rip all the spots, rock all the rocks, cop all the drops…ok maybe Biggie wasnt rapping about these local lads but Call the Shots are bringing their brand of pop punk to our Time Off Magazine Live cover shoot this week.

It might be a little cliché to honeymoon in Hawaii but can you really argue? Sun, surf, sand (if you go to the right beaches) and still plenty of sight seeing, activities and shopping to more than keep you busy.

I knew very little of “the rich man’s Bali” prior to researching and after viewing google maps and the associated scaled distances I was expecting it to be a lot smaller, however after a rather slow crawl through traffic from the airport to our Waikiki hotel it was instantly recognisable, for good and bad, as just about any other major American city.

But first, getting there. Like the savvy travellers we are, we held off till we could nab some crazy cheap flights and lo and behold a couple months out, Air Pacific had a sale and we were set. We heard and read a few horror stories about this budget Pacific carrier but didn’t really encounter close to a Tiger Airlines facebook post.

Of course the trade off for cheap flights is usually an extra stop over, which was in Fiji. Better than a slap in the face yea? Unfortunately it was more like a slow slap in the face, we were scheduled to arrive early evening so the choice in venturing out was limited and with the sun all but gone, it wasn’t even worth a look at the beach outside of the Nadi airport. So with 7 hours to kill we made the most of what the airport had to offer, 2 levels of shops and a food court….cool, now there’s only 6hours 50min left to go. Yep, the place is small, the shops uninspiring and mostly redundant. The food court is based mostly around a carvery style vender which served a variety of meals from classic American to a few Asian dishes. Prices were ok and the quality not too bad. Best thing was they took AU (or USD) currency without a transaction fee but you got your change in Fijian dollars.

Travel Tip: Carry small denominations of AU or USD notes to minimise the amount of unused Fijian currency you’ll have to get exchanged or just keep it for your return stop over.

So to kill the time? We came prepared with a season of Fringe on a netbook, then we just commandeered a table. Later we mixed it up and pulled up some carpet near an unused powerpoint.

Travel Tip: If you get bored from counting the number of Aussie girls with French braids or corn rows and want a bit of piece and quiet, head downstairs to the airline lounges. You can pay a small fee for creature comforts inside or just stretch out on the floor/seats out the front for free.

(not) Christmas Island

(not) Christmas Island runway

Time marched on with the slumping body language and expressions of center staff till we were finally on our way – but wait, whats this? An extra stop at Christmas Island??? Ok first shock was the previous no mention of a second stop and the second was Christmas Island?? Isn’t that in the opposite direction?? Turns out its part of Kiribati, a tiny little island that’s more lagoons and oases than island – but a perfect place if you want middle-of-no-where picturesque beaches, endless fishing and literally nothing else. The ground crew there reflected the laid back environment, some rode up to the airliner on bicycles, most were either wearing thongs or were barefoot and shirtless. One even took a break from doing nothing by lighting up a cigarette, apparently avgas is so laidback here it couldn’t be bothered exploding :-\

After another hour of sitting around (minus the break where US border patrol entered the plane and searched seats …and the poor guys that fit the stereotypical profile) we were on our way.

On arrival at HNL airport we picked up our hire car from Alamo, despite some negative reviews for this location we had no problems at all and even ended getting to choose a VW Jetta over a Ford Focus. After spending a couple thousand miles in a Focus last time, it was an easy decision to choose the German… and it wasn’t just because it was red 😉 You can get around the island quite sufficiently using public transport and mopeds but nothing beats having the freedom and convenience of a car especially when you have multiple activities planned for a day and a bunch of shopping to go with it.

Travel Tip: For the best prices on hire cars go to www.DiscountHawaiiCarRental.com – basically a blind selection from dealers of your car category choice, or better. Once your preferences are entered, you’ll get an email from the hire company with pick up details. A little daunting not knowing what you’ll get or from who, but they only deal with the bigger name companies so you should still have some choice depending on your nominated category. If you’re choosing “convertible” you’ll be mostly limited to a Mustang or Sebring … realistically you’ll end up with a Sebring (which is essentially an old Ford Taurus with the roof cut off. Yep, as ugly as it sounds) To give you an idea, a week hire for a “compact”, which going by the Jetta felt more like a mid-size was about $150 for the week, total of $350 with insurance which is always the killer. Still, at $200 less than the cheapest online advertised price, it was an easy decision.

The prepurchase of a $50 ebay gps complete with current US and Europe maps instantly paid for itself as we made a steady crawl towards Waikiki and our hotel for the week, The Outrigger – Ohana West.

Waikiki

There is of course a plethora of hotels to chose from, most going from “more than your flights” to “yikes!” but thankfully this (not so) little gem was significantly less than surrounding places including sister hotel, Ohana East, a mere half block away. Having the deal sweetened with Zuji’s package special made it even better. The only reason we could tell for the difference in price was from the décor. It looked like the last reno in the rooms was during the 80s but other than that nothing to complain about, good service, large room and balcony and a 5min stroll to the beach. There’s also Chili’s Bar and Grill on the ground level and a Denny’s just across the street, both with a wide range of foods and meal deals.

Travel Tip: Parking is a premium almost every where in Waikiki and of course they capitalise on it. There are a few cheaper long term parking spots but all a few blocks away and most not secured. Ohana East offers paid parking at about $20-25 a day with discounts for longer stays, which makes unloading and loading alot easier. The trade off is, the carpark is very limited so they tend to run out of spaces from mid to late afternoon but if you have already paid, you get directed to Ohana West down the road.

Waikiki Beach

Waikiki Beach

Travel Tip: A lot of the beach front hotels have “private” beaches ie. Its easiest accessed through the hotel. For off the street access you’ll want to head straight for Kuhio Beach Park (Waikiki Beach). Possibly one of the busiest beaches in Oahu, it has levies for shelter and corrosion prevention (I read somewhere that they actually import sand from Australia!), though the native sand is rather coarse. Great spot for a quick dip and kid-friendly but if you want to do anything other than a fun splash/cool down then its best you try elsewhere.

Bags dumped and a quick shower, we were ready to hit the streets of Waikiki!

We’re walking through spider webs this week so take a message and we’ll call you back! Neighbour web slingers The Arachnids gives us the heebyjeebees this week for our Time Off Magazine Live cover shoot. Note its ArachNids 😉

We also fought the hellish Boondall traffic to see one of classic rock’s greatest, The Boss – Mr Bruce Springsteen and the E Street band!
Gig summary in the mag or you can grab the extensive write up and bonus mini gallery here.

Shopping in Beijing… where to start? No, seriously, where do you start?? There are scores of huge multi-level shopping centres which pretty much fall into two categories, high end dedicated brand name stores and haggle city, home of knock offs, repetition and de ja vue. Having shopped till we almost dropped (well at least to the point where we were shipping box loads of stuff home from San Fran and London), our enthusiasm to battle the crowds was waning but we still managed a few stops and a couple last minute items to toy with out luggage limit.

Wang Fu Jing Da Jie

Downtown

A good place to start is downtown Beijing (Dongcheng), an open air, sealed off road style shopping/business center on Wang Fu Jing Da Jie (crossroad : Jinyu Hutong). Nearest metro is Dengshikou, under 1km away or a similar distance from the Forbidden City (depending on which exit you take). Hesitant or cultural shocked shoppers will find this a nice way to ease into it, nothing like the Golden Arches or the Colonel to set your mind at ease no matter where you are in the world 😉 The northern end houses a fair selection of branded watch stores included Omega, Tagheuer , Rolex, our G Shock friends and plenty of glasses/optometrist stores. Nike Beijing is also there, mostly along the athletic side of things with only the latest stock so you wont find any rare releases or streetwear related items but there is a Nike iD upstairs. The store sits in a multi level mall with a run of the usual random clothing and electronics stores, there are however some notable boutique stores sporting some designer Kidrobot, anime, kawaii style gear, like Devil Nut, unfortunately they had the prices to match. There’s also a smallish Adidas store, good for a couple regional tees.

Nike Beijing

Nike iD

Devil Nut

On the southern end of Wang Fu Jing you’ll find another shopping mall – Haoyou World and a bunch of eating places, most notably the famous Wang Fu Jing snack street, great for a plethora of variety but you will have to haggle for your dinner if you want it at a reasonable price or you could take the easy route and go with Yoshinoya.

There are also a small scattering of boutique street wear stores in the surrounding blocks like this Eternal store stocking Nike SB and other skate related brands and products but as with many of these shops, they come and go so be sure to do your research before hand and potentially save yourself a hike.

Eternal

…where you can buy members of the Wu-Tang clan…

Hongqiao Market (Pearl Market)

If you’re out visiting the Temple of Heaven then this “market” is only a couple hundred meters north of the East Gate exit (just up from Tiantandongmen metro stop). The Pearl Market used to be THE place for knock off goods but after getting hammered by the license holders and having building management crack down… its still pretty much the place for knock off goods!

Even though the name suggests its only pearls and jewellery, these are mostly secluded to the top 2 floors, but a bargain (on the real deal) can still be had if you know what you’re looking at/for.

The lower three floors are made up of side by side market stall set up. Most with glass display counters so its more like a department store than a flea market.

Level 1 – Mostly electronics – cameras, mp3 players, storage media, watches, audio/visual. Beats Audio headphones for $40AU? No thanks, even with the pleas from the sales person as “real deal, good buy”. While there were quite a few stores selling DSLR equipment I was still skeptical to the quality as there was just no way of telling if they were warranty repairs or QC failed grade. There were also some silk items and underwear stores mixed randomly between the other stores.

Level 2 – Clothing, shoes, handbags, travel goods – this is where things get tough. Once upon a time I think alot of broke kids much like myself would’ve just been happy to have the brand logo, if it had the same cut/style/distinct features that was a bonus, but I guess as you get older (and have more disposable income) you get choosier and you also buy products for their technology/features/build quality. So the dilemma quickly becomes apparent, that North Face jacket says it has Goretex, looks and feels like it, even has the tags but do I really want to find out in the middle of a downpour far from cover that it isnt waterproof? The sneakers however were a lot easier thanks to my trained eye and a bit of common sense. Jordan 1’s in unreleased colourways or limited edition from 5 years prior just sitting on a shelf at a market? You’re definitely right to be skeptical. Where things get difficult is with current run of the mill models. Being in the country that makes the genuine article means there are plenty of variants, which can even be authentic stock that followed a factory worker home or the more common “fell off the back of the truck” items. Where the seams start to come apart (pun!) are those that have the same equipment but cut corners with materials and quality control. So keep your wits about you, if its too good to be true then it usually is.

Level 3 – Traditional Chinese art, ornaments, vases etc. – Worthy stop for some souvenirs, just remember two things – 1. take note of the materials used in the items, remember AU customs isn’t going to look too kindly on that living bonsai pondscape complete with exotic goldfish (and if you do find something you think will be passable eg. Wooden vase, save yourself embarrassment and a possible fine, declare it) and 2. haggle haggle haggle.

Finally outside there’s good ol’ reliable Yoshinoya and to the right and behind is the Hong Qiao toy market, which I only found out about recently, how I missed this in my research I have no idea! Can someone go check it out or those that have been, tell me its crap so I don’t feel so bad? 😉

Photo tip – like alot of places that sell “unofficial” (re: fake) goods, the shop owners can be rather “private” (re: paranoid that you’re collecting evidence). I managed to get a short video (on a point n shoot) walking down one of the aisles before I was repeatedly beaten… with a rolled up brouchure. Admittedly moo-ing like a cow then asking about “copy watch” didn’t help my case so it’s best to keep photos to a minimum or feel the same wrath.

Hutongs

One of the other bonuses of staying at the Courtyard 7 was being pretty much in the middle of a lane of boutique stores and restaurants on S Luogu Alley, which you could easily liken to places like Bulimba or West End in Brisbane. Many stores stocked a random assortment of quality knick knacks, unusual souvenirs and designer kitch, a far cry from the generic over rehashing of comparative market stalls.

S Luogu Alley

Plastered 8

Vintage wind up toys

Places like Plastered 8 stocked designer tee’s, most with an Asian theme while “Vintage wind up toys” was exactly that, old metal wind up toys. Most were replicas but there were also some older antique items amongst general toys and oddball items. Hipsters will go nuts with Lomo camera gear offerings and of course you can’t leave China without some kind of panda paraphernalia.

Love Cupcakes

Tea houses, small bars and even gourmet cupcake stores follow the lane up to Gulou E St which becomes Jiaodaokou E St. (a major arterial road which leads to the nearest metro stop, Beixinqiao). Along here you’ll find the regular western fast food places with a few clothing and toy boutique stores, many with no names like this toy store, which was packed to the ceiling with figures and model kits while another sold giant plush poos. Good luck or not one managed to follow us home 😉 and with that, comes the conclusion of our 2011 round the world stint. A little slow in the recap but we got there in the end!

Getting There
The closest train station was over a kilometre away but we decided to walk from our hotel to take in some of the residential sites as well as making a short detour pass the Drum Tower, however after that there wasn’t much to see. Catching the train was a breeze – get on at Gulou Dajie, change at Xizhimen and get off at Beijing Zoo. A taxi would have been more convenient but judging from some of the traffic we saw along the way, I dare say the train would be quicker (depending on where you’re coming from of course).

Drum Tower

Once there you’ll have to purchase your tickets, don’t go into the courtyard and expect to get tickets at the gate, look for a line of ticket windows with a mass of people looking like a cross between the stock market and the lines at a music festival. This isn’t London, no
one knows what queuing is, throw in wandering tour groups and masses of school excursioning kids and you’ll understand why I recommend
pre-purchasing your tickets if you can. Like most major attractions there’s rarely a quiet time but a week day visit may see a few less locals.

When inside there’s three areas roughly divided into amphibians, reptiles and birds; big animals and aquarium; and lions, tigers and bears (oh my!). Of course the star attractions are the pandas and the area, especially at the start of the day, was packed so we decided to head away from the crowds.

Things kicked off with the reptile enclosures but the first flag appeared when we saw a group of locals coaxing otters by feeding
them sausages and other snacks while staff stood by unconcerned. I don’t know about you but I have no idea what otters eat let alone what could potentially kill them! I for one definitely wouldn’t want no otter homicide on my hands.

Normally we love zoos especially the big ones where the animals have plenty of space to roam but as we continued it became more and more obvious and rather disheartening to see a lot of the enclosures in varying states of disrepair not helped by the original poor attempts at “authenticity” re: jungle mural painted brick wall.

Sporting a similar poorly simulated scenery was the penguin enclosure, which like several displays wasn’t included in the ticket price. A separate ticket had to be purchased for this enclosure and quite frankly it wasn’t worth it, even with our overwhelming love for the little tuxedo wearers.

Like the penguins, it was an extra fee to get up close to the giraffes but this time you could actually feed them by hand (leaves and other greenery, not the stuff from your bag).

The hippo, rhino, elephants, lions and tigers were all either off in the distance or not visible at all so it was a quick breeze through those sections. Back to the pandas, the crowd had waned a little but it was still at least 3-4 people deep in parts and quite a battle to get close to the viewing glass to snap a photo, but well worth it when you do.

Photo tip: battling the crowd is the easy part, getting your camera close enough to no get any reflection from the glass or 10 camera phones in your shot while dodging some parent holding their terrified scream protesting kid in between the rail and the glass is the real challenge. Just like waiting at a bar to be next in line for drinks you need to choose your moment and make a quick move to any opening spots. Keeping an eye on the movement of other background animals could help you lock in a good shot as well. Wide to mid range zoom with macro ability will be the best lens choice for the whole day, I found a long telephotos lens wasn’t necessary.

With that bit of disappointment done and the rest of the Beijing sights seen, there was only one thing left to do… SHOP!